Coming back from moderating a session at Dan Greenfield’s PR+MKTG CAMP (#PRMKTGCamp) and let me report rave reviews.  Having attended many social media events, this one ranks near the top.  The audience was great with a nice blend of agencies, brands, and social specialists.

One of the big topics of the day was the evolving roles of both PR and marketing.  From all the practitioners in the room, from both side of the aisle, like Kelly Drinkwine (Dir. PR Aon), Cam Balzar (VP Marketing Threadless), or Cristina Lawerence (Dir. WOM Razorfish) there was a shared outlook that the world has shifted and things will not be going back to the way they were.

In the old world both PR and marketing were always well behind the frontlines, aiding and abetting but never coming into direct contact with the enemy.  (okay, not my best metaphor ever!)  The rise of digital and social has dramatically redrawn the lines.  Before PR focused solely on media sources and marketing pushing leads that funneled directly to sales.  Now, both are coming into direct contact with customers on a daily basis whether in the pursuit of influencers or execution of an inbound marketing program.

One of the biggest challenges raised, outside of the changing skill sets is the changing form of evaluation.  Success is going to be measured differently.  That we know, but there is little consensus on what the right measure is.  One notion that gained consensus was Heidi Skinner’s (Dir Influence Marketing CriticalMass) point that impactful metrics will be the ones that are relevant to the boardroom.  It’s incumbent on us, the boots on ground, to make the work relevant to the ways the business is run.

It was a great overall experience.  Check out an event in the future if you can, or check out the great interview with Tim Yorton (CEO of Second City Communications)  about the importance of content and comedy in social channels.

Key takeaways:

-          PR & Marketing need new metrics related to revenue

-          Rules of PR are being rewritten and change is hard

-          Marketing is coming to the forefront, interacting directly with clients

-          Organizational lines have not been redrawn to reflect the changing roles

About Marcus Tewksbury

Marcus Tewksbury has written 12 post in this blog.

Marcus is a respected author, speaker, and thought leader on optimizing marketing organizations to most efficiently, and effectively create value added experiences for high worth customers; a process that he has termed Customer Relationship Marketing, or CRM(arketing).

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